California takes forever to count ballots . And there’s no excuse. No excuse for the delays, no excuse for the Election Night leads that are mysteriously reversed as the mail comes in. It doesn’t have to be this way. California’s “electile dysfunction” is not a necessary condition. It’s not about fairness, or access, or the size of the population. It’s a political choice. A lifetime ago, I was an election observer in a squatter camp in a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South